X-Wing Tournament II Round 3

[tce_event_viewer event_id=’178′] The final match for round two was played on May the 4 be with you, which is pretty cool. The battles are heating up as we enter round 3. There have been a lot of epic battles in round 2 lets see if we can top them in this third round. With two […]

The final match for round two was played on May the 4 be with you, which is pretty cool. The battles are heating up as we enter round 3. There have been a lot of epic battles in round 2 lets see if we can top them in this third round. With two rounds left every match is going to be critical if you want to make the top 8. Here’s the current match ups.

Now that round 3 has officially started, I just want to say a couple things to the players. I know that many of you are still getting the hang of Vassal, but try and be considerate of your opponents time. Please be mindful if you are taking very long turns. I’m sorry to say that Zach has had to step down, due to time. He’s getting ready to run several events at his store, and also preparing for MonCon, so in this round we have our first bye. Good luck to everyone.

Doug takes the win. It was a very close game, with him down to one Bounty Hunter with 3 hull by the end. Avoided splash from the assault missiles, but ate 4 damage off the Seismic Charges. They’re quite effective when dropped well.

Chose at the end to play by the new measuring rules, and stuck with a barrel roll that fit but didn’t give me the shot I was hoping for. If I’d backed up and taken the focus I would have dodged the shot, and the final duel would have been Backstabber with Stealth Device intact vs. BH with 5 hull left, rather than a 1-hull Backstabber with no Stealth.

Probably not the best move, but got to get used to it some time… It was certainly easier to do before the lack of focus made the difference between eating a Direct Hit and a clean miss

Papakitor takes the win in our game. He flew well and didn’t make any mistakes that I saw. I forced him into several less-than-ideal K-turn choices, and he made them with no hesitation.

I flew better than I’ve ever flown before. (He said modestly.) And yet I lost.

Round 3 — four shots, three with outnumbering Attack dice — and did 1 shield damage against six perfect Evades. Statistically, that’s a crippled or dead Biggs. In return fire, two perfect Ion Cannon shots, only one of which I dodged. That lost me Soontir. (Two rounds later is when he died, but I lost him in Round 3.)

Round 7 — two good shots on an actionless Biggs (with 1 Hull left) — and do no damage. That put it out of reach.

Round 9 — a perfect shot on a Focused Vader from an actionless Wedge, and Vader takes a crit. That’s when I conceded.

It was a very intense game. I think the initiative roll was one of the most important parts, and I lucked out there. I guess I lucked out throughout the match.

I really did think you maneuvered exquisitely. There were some spaces I didn’t think you could squeeze a ship, and yet you managed and got your actions. Much less clumsy bumping than I was able to pull off. Hats off to you, and thanks for a great game!

Thanks. You bumped some, but it’s honestly very, very, VERY difficult to keep a Biggs Formation going against a squadron as mobile as AMoC, and it seemed to me that once you realized that, you abandoned the attempt and did everything you needed to do to get attack dice on me. In other words, the early bumps didn’t cost you, and you adapted well.

Thanks! I find that Biggs is best used by swooping in and out of Range 1 of the ship you want to protect. So sometimes he was close to Wedge, and at others he was close to Gold 11, but the idea is to keep the damage spread around. You did the right thing by trying to finish Biggs off, I think, but he just evaded like an ace.

A question came up in one of the matches about whether or not the nubs on the base count for collisions. The rulebook clearly states that you do not count them for firing arcs or for measuring range, but it doesn’t say anything about movement. I always thought that they were part of the base, and if they touched, that counted as a collision.

Of course, the nubs on the bases in Vassal aren’t quite the same size as they are in real life, so it’s a tough call. What is the general consensus?

Not sure there is one. As it happens, models on certain bases actually bang into one another before the bases — let alone the nubs — even collide. It’s not a precision game. You can’t really have a precision game with everything being moved by hand. If it bumps, it bumps! On the table that is.

On VASSAL it’s a lot easier to be precise. But it’s also harder to see the nubs, so the module uses over-sized clown feet nubs. They aren’t representative of an actual model base, so there’s no reason to count them when looking for a collision or overlap.

It’s best to err in favor of “did not bump” in all possible cases. It’s especially more fun for all parties involved not to start delving into “did it bump?” debates over every close call. When it bumps, it’s pretty easy to see with a ZOOM IN or two.

I agree (and was the one affected, and that one decision cost me Soontir + PTL), but I didn’t want to push it. I even suggested a roll-off for it, but had that also flatly denied. I find it difficult to be assertive in situations like these, even when I believe strongly I’m right … there are a lot of things I think it’s worth being a dick about, but it’s tough for me to justify stuff like this among them. (Although mileage can reasonably vary, of course.)

Strength of schedule, if there is still a tie, then I will compare the damage dealt – damage taken. If there is still a tie at that point, I’ll let the two players duke it out for the last spot. My guess is that sos will be fine.

Swiss always matches best to best based on rankings. So #1 will play #2, #3 vs. #4, etc. As Froggies says above, it’s tournament points (which should be the same as wins, have we had any games go to time for a Modified Win?), then strength of schedule, then kill points.